Zero Tolerance (6 page)

There. She had even made a joke about it.

“I'll be sure to watch the news tonight,” Colin said.

Sierra hoped her hair wouldn't look too awful. She should have asked for time to comb it first. Plus, people said the camera put on ten pounds of weight. She'd look dumpy and fat, red-faced and ready to cry under her wind-mussed hair.

“You don't have to watch it.”

It was a dumb thing to say: of course he didn't have to.

“It'll be cool if you're on TV.” Colin smiled at her.

If his hands hadn't been jammed in his hoodie pockets, maybe they'd have been trembling in that poetic way she loved so much.

“Well, see you,” Colin said.

If only she could be back in class tomorrow, sitting next to him.

“See you,” she echoed.

*   *   *

When Sierra and her mother got home, there were seven calls on the answering machine from different newspapers all around the state, from the Associated Press, even from
The New York Times
. Each reporter left a cell phone number, asking Sierra to call back as soon as possible, any time; however late it was didn't matter.

“Your father,” Sierra's mother said, “has been busy.”

“Do I have to call them? All of them?”

Her mother nodded. “I know your father wants you to.”

“What should I say?”

“Just what you've been saying. Keep telling the truth, that it was all a mistake, and that you turned in the knife the instant you found it. But first let me make you a snack. You must be hungry. What did you have for lunch?”

Sierra thought of Tiffany's potato chips and cookie, the boys' small paper cups of green beans and applesauce.

“I'm starving.”

“I'll make you a grilled cheese sandwich. Would you like that? And some tomato soup? Go sit down and relax in the family room, and I'll bring it to you.”

Sierra curled up on the couch and pulled an afghan over her legs. Cornflake came meowing; she patted the blanket, and he jumped up on her lap and began purring.

Idly, Sierra picked up the remote and clicked on the TV. It was set to CNN, her father's favorite channel.

At the bottom of the screen, the news banner scrolled by.
COLORADO HONOR STUDENT FACING EXPULSION FOR BRINGING THE WRONG LUNCH TO SCHOOL.

Sierra stared at the TV.

 

11

 

By four-thirty, Sierra had talked to six reporters; she had left a message for the seventh, but he hadn't called her back yet. Each time she told the reporter the exact same story in almost the exact same words. By the sixth time, it had all begun to feel like just that, a
story
: something that had happened to somebody else, and not to her at all. She no longer felt her heart jam itself up against her ribs when she heard the question “Do you think you're going to be
expelled?
” Instead, she just answered “No.”

There was no way that she, Sierra Shepard, was really going to be expelled from Longwood Middle School forever for one teensy, tiny, innocent mistake.

Each time she said it, she believed it more.

When she checked her phone, she saw she had tons of texts from Celeste, Lexi, and Em. She was too drained to call anyone now. Let them worry about her for a while, her friends who had been allowed to sit in class all day working toward their good grades while she was in prison—with Luke Bishop!—eating the cold green beans that Luke would otherwise have thrown away.

The doorbell rang.

For a fleeting moment Sierra wondered if it could be Mr. Besser, come to apologize, come to tell her he had changed his mind and her suspension was over. The same reporters had probably called him, too; maybe by the time he had repeated his defense of his zero-tolerance policy a dozen times it had started to sound as lame to him as it would to the entire rest of the universe.

Sierra's mother answered the door. From upstairs, Sierra heard her say, “Girls! Come on in!”

Celeste was the first to burst through the door into Sierra's room, with Lexi and Em right behind her. Cornflake leaped off Sierra's pillow and darted under the bed.

“We left, like, a hundred messages!” Celeste's tone was accusing.

“I was on the phone,” Sierra explained as the girls plopped themselves down on Sierra's bed beneath her ruffled canopy. Sierra leaned back against the headboard. “To reporters. To six different reporters. I told Em my dad would go ballistic over this.”

“Like, newspaper reporters?” Lexi asked.

“The
Denver Post
. The Associated Press.
The New York Times
.”

As the names tripped so casually from her tongue, Sierra for the first time felt impressed with herself, in a way that she hadn't felt when she had talked before to Colin. “And TV. Three local news stations were there after school, with huge cameras and everything. Oh, and I saw something about me on the thingie on the bottom of the screen on CNN.”

She glanced over at Celeste, wondering if the pity in Celeste's eyes would turn to something more like amazement, even envy. Sierra's father liked to quote some artist—the one who had painted all those pictures of Campbell Soup cans—who said that everybody got to be famous for fifteen minutes. Maybe this was her fifteen minutes of fame right now. But she wished she could have been famous for something else, for a prize she had won, for something brilliant and wonderful that she had done.

“CNN?” Lexi asked. “Like, national TV?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Holy moly.” Lexi's eyes were gratifyingly huge. “I wonder if they came into the cafeteria and interviewed Sandy and she had to get off her stool. Or maybe they filmed her sitting on her stool.”

Em and Celeste laughed, and Sierra let herself laugh, too.

“Or Ms. Lin. Maybe they had a hidden camera and filmed her being the bitch she is, and now the whole world will see. And Besser—that bow tie he always wears? Maybe they asked him why he seems to think it's cool to wear a bow tie when it's the least cool thing ever.”

“Sometimes they film stuff for TV, but then it doesn't end up being on TV,” Celeste said, stretching herself out full-length on Sierra's bed. “Like, something more important happens. A car wreck. Or a murder. I mean, I don't think someone getting suspended is as big as a murder.” She paused. “You
were
suspended, right? That's why you weren't in class all day?”

Isn't that what you've already been telling everybody? Including Colin?

Sierra nodded.

“And are you really going to be expelled?” Celeste asked. She sounded as if she'd just as soon have Sierra expelled so that she could claim to have been the first to see it coming.

“Well, they have to have a hearing,” Sierra said.

“They're not going to expel her,” Lexi shot back, sitting bolt upright and hugging one of Sierra's pillows to her chest. “Not when it's on TV.”

“Why not?” Celeste asked. “Why would that make any difference?”

“It would make Besser look so bad!” Lexi retorted. “Like the jerk to end all jerks! It's called bad publicity. As in terrible publicity.”

Em hadn't said anything yet; she was busy coaxing Cornflake to reappear from under the bed and position himself on her lap.

“Em?” Sierra asked her, once Celeste had gotten up to go to the bathroom; Sierra could never talk as freely in front of Celeste. “What do you really think is going to happen to me?”

“I don't think they can expel you, not when it was all just a big mistake. It's horrible enough that they suspended you. Was it awful? Sitting in suspension?”

“It wasn't too bad.” She had to say it. “Colin was waiting for me afterward.”

Well, not really waiting for her. But sort of waiting. He might have been waiting. Her five minutes with Colin had been the only good part of a hideous day.

“He
does
like you!” Em said. “What exactly did he say?”

Sierra was grateful that Celeste was still out of the room.

“He said he was going to watch me on TV. He saw all the reporters filming me.”

“So he'll be sitting in his house, and he'll turn on the TV, and he'll sit there gazing at you.” Em gave a little imitation of what was supposed to be Colin's lovesick sigh.

“There's no way you can be expelled once you're on TV,” Lexi repeated. “Once you're so famous, famous all over the country. Maybe even the world.”

“You guys,” Sierra said.

She was glad Em and Lexi had come over, even though she could have done without Celeste. Thank goodness Celeste hadn't heard her gushing about her crush on Colin.

But she would have been gladder if it had been Mr. Besser at the door, coming to put an end to this mess and to make everything all right again.

 

12

 

Sierra's father called to say that he wouldn't be home until late because of the Wilson trial tomorrow. Celeste and Lexi had to go home, but Em stayed to watch the six o'clock local news with Sierra and her mom.

They turned the TV in the family room to Channel 9. Sierra's mother leaned forward from her spot on the ottoman; the two girls sat side by side on the floor, legs outstretched, backs against the couch.

“Maybe it won't be on,” Sierra said, echoing Celeste's words. “Maybe there'll be a murder or a car wreck or something else instead.”

“It'll be on,” her mother said.

Sure enough, the news anchorman, seated next to an anchorwoman, started off the broadcast by saying, “Two state senators face indictment on corruption charges. Another major snowstorm is on its way. And at Longwood Middle School, a seventh-grade honor student may be expelled for bringing the wrong lunch to school by mistake.”

So Celeste didn't know everything.

As she waited for the first segment to be over, the one about the two state senators, Sierra had a thought she had never had before:
Every story on the news is about someone who is a real person.
Those state senators were probably sitting in their houses, smelling a casserole in the oven, maybe with their feet up on the coffee table, watching themselves on TV. Maybe their kids were watching, too, feeling awful that people were saying bad things about their dad, the same dad who had coached their soccer team and helped with math homework.

Although weather usually came late in the news, the snowstorm was predicted to be disruptive enough that the next story segment was devoted to the preparations being made all over the Denver metro area.

A commercial came on for a car dealership having a big January clearance sale. Then the news anchorwoman said: “In the hustle and bustle of busy school mornings, it's easy for family members to grab the wrong lunch by mistake. But at Longwood Middle School, a lunch bag mix-up might mean big trouble for one seventh grader.”

Then there was Sierra, on the screen, standing outside the school explaining to the blond reporter what had happened.

She should have combed her hair.

Was her mouth really that wide?

She hadn't realized that her voice was so high, like she was still in elementary school.

“The principal at Longwood Middle School, Thomas A. Besser, has refused to talk to 9NEWS,” the reporter's voice-over continued as the camera panned the familiar front of the building, with the students streaming out the doors to waiting buses and cars. “But we were able to obtain a copy of the school's zero-tolerance policy put in place by Principal Besser three years ago.”

The text of the policy appeared on the screen, the relevant section highlighted in yellow: “All students bringing drugs or weapons of any kind onto school grounds for any reason without prior written permission will be expelled.”

Sierra's face filled the screen again.

“I think it was unfair. It's completely unfair.”

The camera zoomed even closer as her eyes began to fill with tears.

“Unfair? Or a reasonable strategy to keep students safe? Go to our viewer comments section on our Web site and leave your thoughts. More details on this story tonight at ten.”

Another commercial came on.

“Wow,” Em said.

“Did I look okay, or did I look stupid? Did my mouth look funny to you? Sort of twitching?”

“You looked great. Like—that was
you
. On TV.”

“Do you think Colin watched it?”

“Who's Colin?” her mother asked.

“Nobody,” Sierra said.

The phone rang. Colin?
I just wanted to say that I saw you on TV.
Mr. Besser?
I see now how wrong I've been.
Another reporter?

Sierra's mom answered it. “Yes, hon, we've been watching.” So it was her dad. There was a long pause on her mother's end of the phone. Then: “You're kidding. Already?”

She turned to Sierra. “Eighty-seven people have already logged on to the station Web site. All of them think the school is being ridiculous.” Another pause. “Okay, I'll tell her … Okay, I won't wait up. Love you.”

Sierra's mother put down the phone. “Your father thinks Mr. Besser is going to have to back down now. The publicity is just too terrible. He said you should plan on going to your regular classes tomorrow.”

Em hugged Sierra. “See? I told you they couldn't expel you, didn't I?”

The phone rang another time.

Sierra's mother picked it up. “Hello?… No, Sierra can't talk to any more reporters today. I'm sorry. She needs to do her homework.”

As soon as her mother hung up, the phone rang yet again.

“I'm turning it off,” her mother said. “Enough is enough. Em, do you want to stay for dinner?”

“I'd better go, I guess.” To Sierra she whispered, “Does Colin know your cell phone number? Text me if you hear from him.”